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Women pick even bigger boob jobs if they can 'try before buying' with D-cup the most popular size

Extra step: Sarah Glanville decided to go for a DD-cup after trying the bra, rather than the C she originally planned

Letting women ‘test drive' larger breasts before a boob job has led to them picking even bigger implants.

The ‘try before you buy' idea involves wearing a heavily padded bra for two weeks while doing ordinary tasks such as shopping or the school run.

It was devised to give women a final chance to consider their options before going under the surgeon's knife. And on average, women who tried out their breasts chose implants 30 per cent larger than they first planned - at least one additional cup size.

The man behind the technique, consultant plastic surgeon Mark Henley, said: ‘The result was that women ended up going far bigger than I, or they, expected.'

He said the most popular cup size was a full-looking D-cup rather than the more average C-cup he would have recommended.

The padded bra gives women a better idea of how their breast enlargement might interfere with daily life.

Mr Henley added: ‘I've had various rows with surgeons who say they know what is best for women and are ideally placed to decide what size of implant women want during surgery.

‘But I was keen to develop something which allowed women to make that choice for themselves.'

Mr Henley, who runs East Midlands Aesthetics in Nottingham, has used the technique on 162 women and is presenting his results at the annual meeting of the British Association for Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons this week.

He said women historically chose smaller implants ‘to err on the side of caution' because they feared resembling celebrities such as Katie Price, who has had several breast enhancement operations.

Special bra: Women who can test-run larger breasts are less likely to regret their choice (file picture)

But he believed using the padded bras had given them new-found confidence.

‘After the operation, women were very happy and felt they had made the right decision,' he said. ‘Previously, many would have regrets that they hadn't gone bigger.'

Patients contemplating surgery are given a large bra and ten gel-filled pads for each side. They are told to begin with as many fillers inserted as possible and gradually reduce them until they are happy.

Mother-of-two Sarah Glanville ended up choosing DD implants rather than the C-cup she had originally imagined.

Mrs Glanville, 39, a child-minder of Hilton, near Derby, said: ‘I was always so self-conscious about my bust, which was just AA. It was a bit strange wearing this massive padded bra and because I do a lot of training I ran with it on to see how it felt.

‘I never thought I'd go for a DD but I found I liked it and it didn't look odd given the shape of the rest of my body. Wearing the bra gave me the confidence to do that.'

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